Student organizing is a very real possibility and colleges and universities should understand what union recognition and bargaining mean for their institutions.
President Biden has promised to be the most pro-union president, and his administration has paved the way for labor organizing on college and university campuses. Over the years, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has waffled on whether graduate students have the right to organize under the National Labor Relations Act (Act). Under the Trump administration, the NLRB failed to reverse the most recent precedent on the issue, Columbia University, 364 NLRB No. 90 (2016), which provides that student workers are included within the Act’s definition of an “employee.” As a result of this current precedent, labor organizing among graduate students has gained significant momentum in recent years and, most notably, within the last year. Importantly, that legal precedent not only allows graduate students to organize, but also appreciably implicates organizing rights among undergraduate student workers.
The NLRB’s General Counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, and Chairman, Lauran McFerran, both appointed to their positions by President Biden, have been unwavering in their support of labor organizing rights among student workers. For example, in March 2021, following the NLRB’s withdrawal of a proposed rule which would have overruled the Columbia University decision,...
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